Drowning
by Miyiku
Summary: After Sokka and Suki's wedding, a very sad Earthbender thinks about her future in the Gaang. Tokkangst, very sand and maybe a little OoC.


_**"You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it."**_  
**— Victor Hugo**

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Toph sighed, once again caressing the fan she had in her hands. Its metal sheets made a cut on her fingers and she did not even flinch. From the handle hung a delicate chain with flowers and bells that jingled every time she expanded and folded the fan again. Sitting on the edge of a cliff she breathed heavely and sneezed due the smell of salty air.

Sokka and Suki's wedding was a beautiful event. The Kyoshi warriors as bridesmaids and Katara, Zuko, Aang and Toph as witnesses. It was a simple ceremony, at sunset on the shores of Kyoshi Island while the traditional dresses and decorations of red-gold color of the wedding melted with orange tones of sunset. Both bride and groom were young. Very young. But the last two years of his life had matured them sooner than they should and the conviction gained after defeating an empire of 100 years provided them with the willpower.

Zuko and Mai, and Aang and Katara had taken similar decisions on their own, and sooner or later they all would form their own families.

She did not. Toph had left the last tie that bound her with Gaoling at the death of her mother and the only family she had now was divided into happy couples. The earthbender opened and closed the fan with a sudden movement, making the sheets hiss like knives in the air and the bells tingled with fury. During the wedding ceremony was a tradition on the island that the warrior who married would throw her fan to her single friends, and who managed to catch it, it was believed she would be the next bride. The fan fell at the feet of Toph, who had not even made efforts to catch in the air something that she could not see. Excited, Katara, Mai, Ty Lee and the rest of her colleagues encouraged her to lift the item and cheered her up, even knowing that she had no partner.

Tired of the fan, Toph threw it into the sea. The fan whistled and flew several meters before fall and being swallowed by the waves. There was a couple of days after the ceremony and she barely had moved from the cliff where she was. The same one by where Chin the Great fell after Avatar Kyoshi separated the island from the mainland to prevent his cruelty. There, the earthbender had found refuge after the wedding, just sitting and thinking with her bare feet dangling from the cliff. Her green dress was stained with mud and sand and the skin of her shoulders was covered by a thin layer of salt due the sea wind that blew there. Toph lifted her face to the sky, feeling the sunlight on her skin telling her that was almost nightfall. The tides began to stir in the preamble of the moonrise and she could hear the murmur of nocturnal animals that inhabited the small forest on the edge of the cliff.

She heard steps behind her and shut her eyes, preventing the tears to be shed. Precisely who she was not expecting had came and stopped right behind her.

"Hey Toph ..." said the boy. She just raised one hand in greeting. "We were worried ... how long have you been here? "

"Not enough"- Sokka, distressed by the tone of sadness he felt in the girl's voice slighty lifted one foot trying to approach her, but instead he stayed still.

"Toph ... What's wrong?" She patted the ground beside her, inviting him to sit. The boy obeyed and waited for her to speak first.

"How are your first days as Mr. Kyoshi?" Sokka tried to laugh at the comment but stopped after observing the expression of the earthbender.

"It's ... wonderful. It has always been like this with Suki ... but all those old memories and emotions now renewing." Before he realized the emotion filled the Warrior of the South, who spoke of his marriage enthralled. "Every mornir, waking up to see her with a new light ... and every time she smiles I realize that she understands my ..." When Sokka turned to see his friend, Toph was crouching, hiding her face in her hair. The boy immediately stopped. He looked towards the sky and found the moon, which was just a faint ray of light in the sky because there was still many days before the full moon.

"I thought you loved her," she said suddenly without lifting her face. Sokka immediately knew who she meant.

"I loved her ... I still love her... It's complicated. She will always be my first love, but Yue chose her destiny and I chose mine."

"I didn't think you were one of those people who belived in fate..."

"It was not. But after 2 years meeting Aang, I've had enough spiritual and magical experience to not believe in that. What do you think is yours?" He asked trying to make conversation and thus to find what was causing her sadness.

"Mine? It was written since I was born I guess. I'd become a prodigy Earthbender master to teach the Avatar."

"And that is what the future holds from now on to said earthbender?" Sokka said.

"Nothing." The boy could not understand. Why was she so depressed? He raised his arm to put it on Toph's shoulder, but he did not. She must have realized that and turned her head slightly to where he sat, but did not made another move. "You have all made beautiful families. While mine just faded away"

"I heard that your father got married again ..." he said in a somber tone.

"And now he's looking for the male heir who he always wanted. A beautiful and perfect child, who may follow the house rules and luckily, he may not be blind ." she said with an acid voice tone.

"Maybe he wouldn't be an earthbender..."

"Still. I'm sure it will be the perfect son. Once again an innocent child who command, overprotect and pamper."

"Ohh ... Toph" Sokka, for the third time made an attempt to approach his friend and hold her to offer some comfort, and for the third time Toph´s expression made him think it twice. He took a small rock beside him and looked thoughtful at it. "That's not what bothers you most, right?"

"How ...?"

"Toph, we've spent togheter almost every day in the last 3 years. I think you're more sister of mine than Katara, so don't think you can hide something from me..."

There it was, the hit in the raw nerve. Toph wished she had not thrown the sea fan and so she would have something to throw into the water right now. She instead just took a handful of earth and turned it into a rock and threw it away, as if the whistle it made while falling would carry her thoughts away from her.

"That was for the 'sister' thing, right?" Toph, surprised, opened her eyes wide and turned to Sokka.

"H ... Ho... how did you know?" She stuttered, surprised. Her breathing stopped for a moment and she felt a cold wave that took the blood from her head to her feet. Could he knew after all this time...? "Did you ...?"

"Yes"

"Since when do you know?" She asked almost in a whisper. Embarrassed, she held her breath until knowing the answer, which brought even more grief to her already dull humor. Sokka, who still had the small rock in his hands also threw it into the sea, where it made a slight hollow sound and disappeared into the foam of the waves.

"Almost from the beggining"

Silence. The only sound around them was the echo of the ocean and the chirping of night bugs. The wind picked up and before they could realize it was almost completely dark. The moon still didn't shone enough, but the glow of the town lights allowed Sokka to see the smooth profile of the thoughtful earthbender contrasting in the velvety sky.

The young man's mind was a whirl of thoughts. He had always noticed a special connection with his friend, and he knew that she had a great appreciation for him than the rest of his teammates. During those two years he was confident that the feeling Toph had about him was just a passing infatuation, platonic childish love. And at that moment, seeing the lady's blind eyes, he understood the great secret they kept. Love. And he felt his heart broken of regret, since as much as he loved and cared for Toph, his feelings for her did not compare those he felt for Yue or Suki. It just was not that kind love. He sighed heavily and covered his face with his hands, trying to silence a cry that was in his throat.

Toph stood up and breathed deeply, savoring the salty breeze. Sokka raised his face to observe her. She looked like a spirit. Light as a feather with the skirt of her dress torn and covered with sand and mud, her messy hair swinging and waving in the air. She stretched her arms and smiled slightly, a sad smile Sokka had never seen.

"Toph ... What are you doing?" The girl did not answer. She seemed to enjoy the sea wind, which raged all the time making her hair wave furiously and the edge of her dress to tear. "Toph, come on ... we should go back with the others, it appears that a storm is coming ..." he said more and more scared.

"The spirits that rule the people of your tribe are the Ocean and the Moon, right, Sokka?" She asked in a kind of trance, fascinated with the violent gusts of wind hitting her face.

"What nonsense are you talking about Toph? You're starting to to scare me, let's go!" Sokka said alarmed and began to pull his friend's shoulder. She made a slight movement with her wirsts and her little feet instantly were encased in heavy squares of rock, simulating rough mineral boots. "Toph! What are you doing?" Sokka took his friend's arms, trying to move from that place but she was firmly planted on the edge of the cliff.

"You have a love watching you over from the Moon ..." Sokka felt a chill down his spine and his eyes searched frantically in the cloudy sky while pulling the earthbender harder. "Now you will have a love observing you from the Ocean ..." struggling against the boy's grip, Toph took a couple of steps into the void with her feet wrapped in rock and jumped into the furious sea.

"Toph!" Sokka didn't think twice and jumped. He heard the sound of the heavy blow Toph made when she hit the water just before he felt the icy water digging into every inch of his skin when he hit the waves. His body was used to the cold polar waters and he quickly recovered from the low temperature, but took him a moment to focus his mind towards his goal: to find Toph in a completely dark ocean, where all he could see was the foam. He swam deeper, forcing his eyes to find some hint of her friend's snowy dress. Confused among the darkness and the force of the waves he finally found the brilliant white spot that was supposed to be the Blind Bandit, sinking at great speed. He swam with all his might to reach out and he managed to grabher arms, trying to pull her up. She opened her eyes and began to struggle against him, but Sokka went straight to her legs and tried to remove the rocks of her delicate feet. He had little air left, and he assumed she too, so in a final attempt he went upside her, holding her by the forearms and spending all his left strenght into trying to keep her afloat.

He could'n made it... Toph slowly slip from his arms and he could do absolutely nothing for her. He fixed his eyes on hers, those enigmatic blind crystals had always fascinated him. And then he discovered it. It wasn't the same expression of terror as he held her on the airship of the Fire Nation years ago. It wasn't the look of someone who does not want to die, quite the contrary. Her expression, her eyes were nothing more than a plea. Just asking him to let her go. With a heart full of pain he brought his face close to her friend's and he kissed her, feeling for the first and last time those lips that patiently waited for him. The lack of air began to take its toll on the young man, but he refused to let her go. Forcefully he grabbed her forearms and tried again to pull her toward him, but she found a way to let go and pushed him with one last effort. Sokka could only see the body of her friend sinking faster and faster into the sea before the darkness invaded his mind completely.

"Toph!"

Sokka woke up screaming and panting heavily with the vague memory that was repeating over and over again in his head. Weak and pale, he had spent who knows how many days lying in bed completely unconscious. His hands trembled as he put them over his face and it was there when he realized the extra weight in one of his hands. He opened his fist and turned his eyes in disbelief to a depleted Suki, who had watched him all those days beside his bed and now, with infinite worry in her face was trying to understand what was going through the boy's mind. A shiver ran down his back as he recalled the events of the last night he could remember. A stormy sky, a faint ray of moonlight, the strong blow against the icy water and two huge imploring green eyes. Frantic, he looked at the object in his hand and then searched for Suki.

A bow. No, a black armband of an unknown metal was in Sokka's hand. Suki took the warrior's hand in hers and squeezed it gently in a vain attempt to comfort him.

Another loss, one more life that had escaped from his hands. The first one was Yue, the young woman he had been unable to protect. The second one, Toph, the girl he had been unable to love.

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**AN:** I wrote this in 2009 inspired by some beautiful fanart I saw in DeviantArt. I translated it to english in 2010 and I don't know why I didn't uploaded here...


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